Do the ant eaters perform any valuable services to the environment by tearing up termite mounds and ant nests? Does it help the prey in someway? Does it help the environment?
Well, I think they are cute. :eek:
If there is a nitch, nature makes a filler for it.
It helps the ant-eaters…
Evolution doesn’t have a purpose. Ant-eaters don’t have to be useful to the ants/termites, the environment, or anything else. They just have to get enough food to survive to make more ant-eaters, and not do so much damage that they wreck their own niche.
Are you gathering intelligence for the coming anteater-honeybadger war?
Do they cause the insects to disperse quicker than normal and set up new homes?
I can’t speculate on evolutionary niches, but I do know that anteaters are the cheapest doppel you can get.
That’s not how ant colonies work.
They center around the queen. The queen (aside from a few nomadic species like army ants) does not relocate. If the queen is killed the remaining workers might amble about for awhile but the colony is done.
New ant colonies are created when a fertile female goes on a mating flight, mates, lands, and sets up shop.
Antenter “dispersals” just disrupt an existing colony, which does not relocate. The colony may or may not recover after being disturbed.
There might be some fringe benefits to other predatory bugs/birds/etc, who would take advantage of a disturbed colony to grab a quick snack. (Kind of like African honey guide birds do, with bees?)
“Valuable service” from which perspective? Human? Vermilinguid? Formic? Geological? Cosmic? Ecclesiastic?
Nothing really specific. If the anteater never existed would it had had any impact on the way it’s environment developed. I know they are very widespread throughout the rain forests and savannas.
There are several animals known as Anteaters, and plenty of other animals that eat ants also. Provide an abundant food source like ants and something will evolve to take advantage of that. I don’t know how effective any of those anteaters are at changing the ant population, there are zillions of ants in tropical regions, and they eat everything that grows while it’s alive or after it’s dead.